Laboratory Technologist Quotes

In fact, the laboratory may be the greatest friend to dumb animals. As science advances, the lives of animals will improve as we depend less and less on their labor and no longer ignore their conditions in order to improve ours. You know, there is much to learn from animals if we are ever to be truly industrial creatures. The beaver is the finest builder of bridges and the silkworm a better weaver than any man or woman. God gave industry perfectly to the caterpillar while we must learn our arts. That is technology--our way to become closer to being like animals.

But technology advanced. The steam shovel grew into a mighty mechanism and was replaced by gasoline and diesel-powered successors. “Dozers” and other efficient excavators were perfected. Ever cheaper and safer explosives came from the laboratories. These marvelous new tools enabled men to change the earth, abolishing its natural features and reshaping them as whim or necessity might require. And as these developments made possible a radically new application of the privileges granted in the yellowed mineral deeds, the courts kept pace. Year by year they subjected the mountaineer to each innovation in tools and techniques the technologists were able to dream up. First, it was decided that the purchase of coal automatically granted the “usual and ordinary” mining rights; and then that the usual mining rights included authority to cut down enough of the trees on the surface to supply props for the underground workings. This subjected thousands of acres to cutting for which the owners were uncompensated. It gave the companies an immensely valuable property right for which they had neither bargained nor paid.